Be But Sworn My Love
by Courtney Kathrys
Summary: COMPLETE: From the obvious flames of Harry Potter and Tom Riddle, to the background lovers of Michael Corner and Dean Thomas, to the affairs of Draco Malfoy and Sirius Black. These six vignettes in Ginny's own words. Prequal to We Were Only Two
1. Harry Potter

Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Harry Potter  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: First in the "Be But Sworn My Love" series; Ginny depicts her feelings about Harry Potter as she has come to grips with them  
  
Notes: The series is the prelude to the "We Were Only Two" series.  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
  
There was a time in my life where I fancied myself in love with him. What self respecting witch my age didn't? He was the savior of the Wizarding World, and only slightly older than I, the perfect age for romance. And in all of my ten year old glory – I loved him.  
  
I loved him well into my eleventh year. I was a completely different girl around him, all my brothers noticed. The first time he visited the Burrow, Ron made a comment about it to him, something about how I never shut-up usually. I burned in embarrassment for the rest of the day.  
  
I could never be myself around him. It was hero worship all the time. But what else would you suspect? Here I am, the youngest in a family of seven, with half a dozen older brothers, and I have been raised my entire life to view this boy as the savior of the world as we know it. The Boy who Lived! The One who defeated the Dark Lord! And to top it all off, he was devilishly handsome – though he'd never admit that to anyone, since he doesn't believe it. But there's something about that windswept black hair and those emerald eyes which are for too knowing for his age – and that scar which gives him a wild roguish look, despite his glasses. He was, and still is, a hero in every sense of the word.  
  
And I no longer indulge in such school girl fancies over him. I have grown past his innocuous grin, and accidental boyish charm. I have, though many have not. Those eyes are too knowing for my tastes, they have seen too much and have too much about me. Perhaps if he had saved someone else's life I might still be in infatuation.  
  
Funny, isn't it? Your hero saves your life, rescues the damsel in distress and flies away with her into the night – and she falls out of love. The opposite of everything that you have ever been told. But it is because he saved my life, because I saw the hero in action, that I cannot love him now, nor will I ever in the future.  
  
Don't you understand? I felt weak beside him, I felt that I had been judged and found lacking, That I needed to be rescued, that I needed to be carried away, that I could not take care of myself – a girl with six older brothers should not be caught in that predicament. And I was. And he got me out of it. And I can never forgive him for it.  
  
I always imagined myself fighting beside him, riding into battle as his trusted second, someone he could entrust with his life. How could I be entrusted with the life of a man who saved mine? I am not a damsel in distress. I am the girl who stole all of her brothers brooms and taught herself to play Quidditch better than any of them, aside from Charlie, after they said it was 'too dangerous' for me. I am the girl who has come up with an extraordinary amount of pranks that have made Fred and George famous. And I am the only girl that he has ever had to rescue. How pathetic is that?  
  
No one noticed when I stopped being in love with him. They just chose not to see. When Ron suggested I attend the Yule Ball with him, I blushed since I was embarrassed to be reminded of that lapse in judgment I incurred my first year. And I was so greatly relieved that I was promised to Neville. Ron still thinks that I will end up with him in the end, but he only wants that so his best mate can really be a brother, a Weasley. The two of them should move to Denmark and get a bloody marriage license themselves. I want no part of that.  
  
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the boy. Quite the contrary, he is a wonderful fellow and we are good friends. But that is all we ever could be.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 


	2. Tom Riddle

Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Tom Riddle  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: Second in the "Be But Sworn My Love" series. Ginny goes into detail about the nature of her relationship with Tom, what happened in the Chamber, and the lasting effects..  
  
Notes: This series is the prelude to the "We Were Ony Two" series  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
  
The irony that I have come to view my life as is really quite astounding, I assure you; take for example this situation: I fell out of love with Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and in love with Tom Riddle, the Boy who became the Dark Lord. Yes, that is right: I, Virginia Weasley was in love with Tom Riddle. I know people say that you can't fall in love at eleven – but then, they've never been possessed by their lover have they? I don't think you can truly love a person unless you know them, body, mind, and soul. And that is literally how I knew Tom.  
  
Most everyone knows the story of my first year, and the Chamber of Secrets and the Diary. Everyone knows, but no one likes to talk of it. It was as if when I started my second year, everyone except me was placed under obliviate and left me to suffer alone with my memories.  
  
Yes, that is all he is now – a memory. But he was real once, or almost real. We were both so half way, him almost there and I almost gone, that we could be corporeal to each other. And his words were so life like, swimming in my head and intoxicating me.  
  
It started off so innocently. I was surprised to find the Diary in my books, and thought it a kind gift from my father to his little girl before leaving for Hogwarts. I knew better than to make a big deal of it, my brothers already tease me enough about my special treatment – no need to rile them up further. So I thanked my father for the books, and hoped he got my true meaning laced behind my words.  
  
Tom was a wonderful correspondent and I would talk with him all hours into the night, and even through classes like History of Magic. He was my cocaine, euphoric and hot through the veins, and feelings of emptiness and despair when you've gone too long without. Slowly throughout the year I became more addicted to him, bending and complying with his whims and favors without hardly realizing or addressing the situation.  
  
Was I scared? Oh yes, I was terrified! I was eleven years old, I was supposed to be in love with Harry Potter and here I am, fallen head over heels with a diary! I tried to rid myself of him, but I never could. He always found a way to come back to me. That's what convinced me that it was real love – isn't real love supposed to come back when you set it free?  
  
That night he told me that he would come to me in person, I just had to go to that horrible chamber once more. So I complied; never knowing that it would almost be the death of me.  
  
He was beautiful. Dark hair, pale skin, and obsidian eyes that you could loose yourself in. Those first kisses were so sweet, so gentle, and so wonderful. My first real kiss to my first real love. I never noticed myself slipping away as he became firmer beneath my fingers. Then it wasn't so gentle.  
  
People always say that when a boy pressures you, and you're not ready, to just say no. But what if that boy is you and he has taken possession of your mind and your soul? How do you stop him from taking your body as well? You can refuse him nothing. And I was no exception.  
  
I don't have any hard core memories, only passing details. Hands, and lips, and skin, and pleasure, and pain. I remember screaming in a mixture of both and I felt so dirty and so alive. I was only eleven.  
  
The last I saw of Tom was of his cruel smirk as he kissed my forehead and thanked me. He straightened my skirt and disposed of my torn knickers, laying me down carefully in the puddle of water. I remember his voice exclaiming the arrival of Harry soon after, and I can't remember any more before waking up to find out Harry had killed him.  
  
I cried that night, and all through my summer at St. Mungo's. Everyone thought I cried because of my horrible experience, but I was crying because I had lost him. I would wake up screaming in the night, and my mum thought the terror to be nightmare induced memories. They were memories, yes, but not from my nightmares. Nightmares could never produce such pleasure and pain.  
  
I realized in my second year that I still carried a bit of him inside, and I can still feel his emotions and think his thoughts, though I'm sure he pays me no mind at all, and doesn't even know my name. It took a long time to let Tom go... and I don't think I'll ever quite succeed.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 


	3. Michael Corner

Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Michael Corner  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: Third in the "Be But Sworn My Love" series. Ginny confesses the real reasons why she dated and dumped Michael Corner.  
  
Notes: This series is the prelude to the "We Were Only Two" series  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
  
I had my first real boyfriend at the age of thirteen. I didn't really want a boyfriend, but I had no desire to ostracize myself from the other girls in my year further. So I picked him carefully, someone older and in a different house. Someone beautiful, but not overly noticeable – I found him at the Yule Ball, standing by the punch table. We started dating in secret soon after.  
  
Michael Corner was no great passion or flame. He was a good boy, and he was good to me. It's not his fault that I never wanted him. I tried to want him, to love him. Lord how I tried – but as that old adage goes: you can lead a hippogriff to freedom, but you can't make it fly. I couldn't make my heart fly for him. We stayed together for nearly a year, and I tried so hard to feel the way that I was supposed to! But he could not compare to my hero worship of Harry, or my addiction to Tom. He was too innocent, too innocuous. And I was too tainted – too cynical and too jaded to ever dream of loving a boy like Michael.  
  
Michael was really the type of boy you could bring home to meet the parents. He wasn't a smarmy talker, or a charming and witty gentleman. He was just simply an honest and pure type of guy. The type that a Mother could look at and immediately know that her daughter would be safe, and loved and protected. That's why he never met my Mum. She would have fallen in love with him, like I never could. And when the relationship met its inevitable demise, she would have been heartbroken and I would have heard about it for days. She would have invited him over for dinner out of the blue just because she liked his company. He was the boy you could be proud of.  
  
Yes, he was good to me. He always opened doors and let me go first. He would carry me over puddles and pull my chair out for me. He would give my flowers for no reason and remembered every month anniversary with a small gift. He was the perfect boyfriend... just not perfect for me.  
  
Whenever he opened the door for me I wanted to yell that I had arms, and I knew how to use them. When he let me in first I felt unduly worshiped. When he carried me over puddles I wanted to laugh. I let the flowers he gave me wither, not bothering to water them or dry them out as the other girls do. I forget the day we began dating, and was always shocked to learn it was a one month, or four month, or even ten month anniversary. I didn't care. I nearly laughed every time he gave me a present for them.  
  
When he kissed me I grew bored. Wanting the fiery feel of Tom and the way his hands felt like knives piercing me wherever he touched. I wanted the danger and the destruction and the horror and the pain and the pleasure that comes with walking through fire. Michael was ice water when I needed to burn.  
  
So then the question presented itself: how am I supposed to break up with him without causing suspicion? That was tough, since everyone who knew Michael knew that he cherished me and worshiped the ground I walked upon. They noticed the way his blue eyes would light up when I entered a room, and the way he would nervously run his hands through his black hair when I walked by. But he had one, fatal flaw. The flaw all men have, really – Quidditch. He was so damn obsessive over Quidditch. Whenever Ravenclaw would loose, he would sulk, but always hide it from me, saying it wasn't my fault since I didn't play against the winning team.  
  
So when I was offered the position of seeker following Harry's expulsion from the team I took it gladly, confident enough in my Quidditch skills that I could beat Cho. Oh and beat her I did. It was a brilliant game, and Ron played fantastically. When I caught the snitch I looked up to see Michael stare at me with a mixture of anger, hurt, and betrayal. And as wrong as it is to say, I felt this glorious, twisted accomplishment at the fact that I had hurt him. I knew then that I had him right where I wanted him.  
  
And I did. He sulked, and blamed me for Ravenclaw loosing. And I broke up with him, saying if he couldn't handle me playing Quidditch than he couldn't handle me at all. In the heat of his anger he agreed vehemently. Only later did Luna inform me that he had been crushed and locked himself in his room crying.  
  
Not long after he started dating Cho Chang, Harry's cast off. I felt betrayed, almost, that Michael would have the audacity to replace me with Harry's former flame. It infuriated me that something I had considered my own, a man who was mine, was again tainted by Harry. I guess my life will always be tied to his through strange coincidences.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 


	4. Dean Thomas

Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Dean Thomas  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: Fourth in the "Be But Sworn My Love" series. Ginny describes the shocking relationship she experienced with Dean Thomas.  
  
Notes: This series is the prelude to the "We Were Only Two" series.  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
  
I don't think I can really explain Dean Thomas in a way that would make very much sense. I don't think that I can even remember Dean with much sanity at all; the time I spent with him was so tumultuous. In so many ways he was like Tom with his perfectionism, and possessiveness. In ways he was like Harry with his desire to do good and his sports obsession. In other ways he was like Michael with his politeness and his ability to set you at ease with a smile. But Dean and I were never good for each other, because we were never good enough for each other.  
  
Like I said, I cannot explain it in a way that will make sense of the insanity. I began my relationship with Dean at the end of my fourth year, a little after my break up with Michael. I had just returned from the Department of Mysteries where Sirius had fallen through the veil. I thought I was alone in the common room and I just let myself cry, tears that I had held inside since my summer at St. Mungo's. I don't recall when Dean had come down stairs and seen me curled up on the floor sobbing, or when he came and placed his arms around me, or when I leaned my head on his shoulder and continued my torrent of tears while he rocked me. All I know is that I felt a body around me and it felt so warm, so familiar and so wanted. I don't know if I knew it was Dean, but I was kissing him, and it felt so good just to loose myself in a pair of lips, a slippery tongue and warm hands in my hair.  
  
I remember knowing it was Dean when he pulled away, telling me that I was just upset, and that Ron would kill him if he happened to wonder down stairs and see us together. I told him I wasn't sorry, and he replied that he never said he was either. I smiled. That's when I started to like Dean. His subliminal arrogance and the fact that he knew exactly what he wanted and didn't rest till he had it. I found out that summer that he wanted me, and he pulled out all the stops in claiming me as his own.  
  
We stayed at the Burrow that summer, and I don't know whether it was fortunate or not, because Dean showed up out of the blue and introduced himself to my Mum. That was smart, because gaining her on his side made turning him down nearly an impossible task. After he convinced Mum, he set to work on my brothers, a harder task, but as he proved, not impossible. So now my whole family was against me, wanting to know why, if I liked Dean, since I had stupidly admitted to Ron that I liked Dean in an effort to annoy him, why I didn't just date him.  
  
So I did. And what followed was the most tumultuous year and a half of my life. As I said before, Dean knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew exactly what he wanted it to be, and to look like, and to act. He was so like Tom in that aspect that I fell for it completely. I cut my waist length hair for him, since he preferred short hair. I started wearing lip gloss and fixing up my new haircut, since he wanted me to look like a girl. I would walk the halls with him, and just smile patiently by his side, the perfect trophy girlfriend. But it was never good enough for him. Nothing was ever good enough and I thought that since he wasn't fawning over me like Michael that it was I who was doing something wrong. It was I who was the problem, and I who was the anomaly.  
  
I remember when we first slept together, on the cold stone floor of the clichéd Astronomy Tower. I remember how when we had finished we rolled over, back to back, and didn't speak till morning. That became a trend in our shagging. I didn't realize that that wasn't normal. I remember the day after he was angry at me for not being a virgin. He was even angrier for not telling him who it was I had lost my virginity too, and assumed it was Michael. Michael was too polite to ever do something as crude as shag.  
  
Dean wasn't as polite with me as I was with Michael, he didn't look for a reason to break up with me, he just did. He told me he was tired of me, and that I couldn't be what he wanted me to be. I told him I felt the same, but inside I was torn. What more could I have done? I didn't love him, I knew that... but I also knew that I never tried to love him; I was just so concerned with why he never loved me.  
  
No one believed me of course, when I tried to detail my relationship with Dean. And Ron and my Mum wanted to know what I did to "scare that poor boy off." Nice to know that my family cares. No one believed Dean capable of being so cruel, so perfectionistic.  
  
After all, something always is wrong with me... so why would this case have been any different?  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 


	5. Draco Malfoy

Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Draco Malfoy  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: Fifth in the "Be But Sworn My Love" series. Ginny gleefully depicts her calculated arrangement with Draco Malfoy in order to shock all who know her.  
  
Notes: This series is the prelude to the "We Were Only Two" series.  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
  
Sixteen is too young of an age to feel so tired, and so old. To feel so determined on ever finding someone I could let loose and just love. So I stopped looking for love.  
  
Immediately following the high profile break up of Dean and I was the Winter Holiday. Somehow, I'm not quite sure how, my mum let me stay at Hogwarts for the Holiday by myself. Maybe she felt bad for me, having my "heart broken." More than likely she was just annoyed with me for "loosing Dean."  
  
That break I had time to fester on how no one believed the nature of the relationship, and always assumed that I was the heartbreaker, and not the broken. More times than not it is I who have been broken – Michael the notable exception. That is when I had my brilliant idea of revenge. I would date someone my family would completely disapprove of. Someone more like Tom who would hurt me and I could handle it because I expected it. Someone more like me.  
  
And I discovered my victim as the only Slytherin who had to stay at the castle over the holiday. The boy who hated my family nearly as much as they hated his. The boy my brother made a fancy little notebook detailing all the horrible and cruel ways to kill for, a notebook which Harry has greatly enjoyed and even Hermione has decorated with little doodles of decapitated ferrets. The dragon himself. Draco Malfoy.  
  
Getting him to not only notice and appreciate me wasn't really as hard as you would think. I simply wore my most revealing robes, snuck up behind him in the halls and pushed him against the wall. In a low tone I said: "You hate my family and they hate you just as much. I want to get back at them, and you just love to torture them. I can help you, and you can help me, and I'm sure we can think of multiple ways to help each other even more so as well."  
  
Before he could answer, I pressed my lips against his. Not a hard bruising kiss, but a light, feathery, teasing brush of lips and tip of tongue. I left him with a smirk and a sultry wave, a whisper of bidding to meeting me in the library with his answer after dinner.  
  
I knew he would be there waiting when I showed up. We smirked at each other and worked out details and nuances to convince our friends that this arrangement was more than a set up. He would tell the Slytherin's he was using me, and I would tell the Gryffindors that after Dean, Draco was a nice breath of normalcy. Sure to get them wound up. That night I learned the stacks in the library were more comfortable than the stone of a tower.  
  
The Holidays ended and our scheme had come to its test. That night at dinner, Draco in all of his smirky arrogance swaggered over to the Gryffindor table, holding his hand out to me. I paused for dramatic effect, noticing how all the room paused and even the professors were paying attention to us. Ron and Harry and Hermione were struck dumb by Draco's sudden appearance; however they quickly regained their voices as I took his hand and he helped me up, letting the hand slide low and possessive about my waist.  
  
"Malfoy..."  
  
"Get your bloody hands off of my bloody sister you bloody ferret!"  
  
"Now, Ginny, really? Draco Malfoy? What are you thinking?"  
  
I'll leave you to guess which comments belonged to which Dream Team member. I simply turned and smiled at them, enjoying the way Dean let his fork fall from between his fingers. Draco and I swept out of the Great Hall in all the horrible majesty we could manage, waiting to break down in laughter until we were safe within the confines of Draco's room. Being Head Boy came with some lovely perks. I didn't return to the dorms that night, or the next.  
  
It continued on that way until the end of the year snuck upon us. I would let Mum's daily Howler scream during breakfast, and I'd become adept to ignoring the warnings of everyone in Gryffindor tower. IT was easy now, and easy meant routine and routine meant boring. Yes Draco was selfish, and arrogant, and mean. But he wasn't Tom. He wasn't the type of danger I wanted and sought for. I wasn't the type of information his father sought. That last week of his Hogwarts education we had one last romp in the library, before acknowledging our departure, with exclamations on how we would miss the fun we had had.  
  
Needless to say, no one was very heartbroken after the announcement of Draco and me. In fact, for all parties involved it was a welcome change in events. For the first time ever in my life, I was satisfied with not having any male companionship. For the first time, I was content with being just Ginny.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 


	6. Sirius Black

Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Sirius Black  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: Sixth in the "Be But Sworn My Love" series. The final chapter. Ginny admits how her clandestine relationship with Sirius Black began. Ends right where "We Were Only Two" begins.  
  
Notes: This series is the prelude to the "We Were Only Two" series.  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
  
It is always when you are most content with your life, that some new factor is thrown into the mix to complicate matters even more so. This time is no exception. I had just emerged from my arrangement with Draco, I could not in good conscience call what we had a relationship; it was a business arrangement, with some perks on the side. I was feeling elated, happier than I had ever felt in my entire life.  
  
Until I was told I was to have no part in any of the covert operations that were being done. Harry was thick in the beginnings of Auror training and multiple missions for the Order. Ron was slowly but steadily gaining power in the slowly evolving Ministry of Magic. Hermione was working on complex and difficult new spells and charms, determine to find something useful. I was still in school, and I was forced to stay home.  
  
It was on one of those hot, early summer days when I ran into Sirius Black while wondering the house. He was about to feed Buckbeak, and offered to have me join him. I was so sick for companionship that I agreed immediately.  
  
Our conversation that day was light and easy, and we talked jokingly of all the pranks that had been performed between us. I remember thinking how easy it was to talk with him, and he seemed to me just another peer, instead of Harry's Godfather. There was no mention of deeper secrets that day, no questions on why we were locked inside this prison house, and everyone else out saving the world.  
  
But the next day they were discussed in abundance. Sirius lamented on how ever since he had miraculously come back through the veil, nearly dead, he had been kept under lock and key at Grimmauld Place. He agreed that he understood why, but confessed that he abhorred it. I told him frankly that I did not know why I had to stay, as the Trio had been fighting all throughout their school years, and I had faced Voldemort far more intimately than any of them could possibly imagine. To Sirius' credit, he did not ask me how on that day, nor that week.  
  
The question came soon enough, however. So I told him all of my secrets. I told him of Tom, of every sordid and sacred detail which occurred, and he listened to me wordlessly. When I finished I waited for it, for the pity, for the horror. He simply looked at me for a long while, before beginning to tell me of his tale. I was so grateful at that moment, at the subtle change in subject, and the opening of his guarded doors to his childhood. He trusted me with the details of living in a house of Dark Magic, as I had entrusted him with being possessed by it.  
  
The next day I told him of Dean, and of how no one ever believed the boy capable of that. Sirius said the boy always looked shifty to him, and he wasn't surprised in the least that he turned out to be such a prat. I smiled as I bent my head, grabbing some dead rats to hand Buckbeak. I knew that Sirius had never met Dean, but his support was enough to give me an elation that surpassed most. So I dared to tell him of Draco. I told him every raunchy detail. By the end, Sirius gave me a roguish grin and told me all I needed was a Hufflepuff and I could be the perfect candidate to write a "Sex and Hogwarts – the Men and their Houses," handbook. I cheekily grinned at him and questioned whether he had one out already for the women. This time it was his turn to spill twenty-five years of sex and experience. I realized I had never talked to anyone the way I was him, and that he probably didn't even see me as a seventeen year old girl with whom this debauched conversation was occurring with.  
  
Soon sex turned into darker conversations, and Sirius began to tell me of Azkaban. He admitted to me that he had told no one of these confessions, and I was touched that he trusted me. That day he talked from the moment the house was vacant, until the first foot stepped inside the door. That night at dinner I noticed that the haunted look in his eyes was faded.  
  
The next day he told me of the veil, and I listened, enraptured by the descriptions of spirits that tortured the living that happened to fall into them. My heart twisted when he confessed that the only thing that kept him alive and striving to find a way out was that he knew Harry needed him, and that Harry could not handle thinking himself the cause of another death. He reminisced about finding the exit and clawing himself out and back into the Department of Mysteries, shocking the hell out of the Unspeakable working there. Luckily, he had been an Order member and Sirius was delivered to Headquarters without further ado. I had been there that summer, and I remembered the rest vividly, without need of further explanation in his part, and he was glad not to have to give it.  
  
I remember, it was three day till my departure. It was unusually quiet between us that day, the gravity of my leaving hanging between us. It was late, most of the Order on overnight duties, and we had made dinner for ourselves, and returned to Buckbeak. He made the first move, taking my shoulder, and turning me towards him. I reached out a hand and traced his jawbone. He placed a hand behind my head. Then there was nothing but our lips as we closed in for our first kiss.  
  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 


End file.
